Reign of Immortals

by Marin Landis

  His mind had started to go then and he barely understood when he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to imprisonment. He was to never see the sun again, but a stone disk representing Sehar was chained to him, the shackles being welded shut. The lack of locks and keys meant that this was very final, but he hardly registered the fact.

  His father had tried to visit him, just once but then changed his name and moved back to Uth-Magnar to sell candles.

  Caravice Wintom was a forgotten person. Nobody wanted to talk about him. Sunar had seen all records of the family stricken from every record and had forbidden anyone to mention Deena or Caravice ever again.

  For seven years he had walked the circuit of his cell in the deepest depths of Sunar's dungeons, dragging the stone disk of Sehar with him. The irony of the Sun Goddess's symbol being his burden in this sunless hell escaped him, his mental state eventually having devolved to that of a mindless beast. He knew how to walk around the edge of the room dragging the heavy stone but little else. He slept in his own waste, struck the rats when they bit him and devoured the food he was delivered like a starving madman. To a sane man this would have been a punishment, but he who was once Caravice Wintom didn't have the ability to think far enough ahead to understand the difference between punishment and 'the way things were'.

  Even when the scratching started, he didn't display any sort of surprise or curiosity. It was just another thing that happened.

  His days became the same as they had been for the past six and three quarter years. Walking the edge of the room with his disk, eating and sleeping. But now there was the noise. The scratching and skittering was incessant. It wasn't rats, the rats had stopped coming into the cell when the scratching started. Even the guards had heard it and blamed it on the rats.

  Nine days after the anniversary of his seventh year in captivity something different happened. The door opened. Caravice didn't change anything about what he was doing but then there were voices and a tugging on his chain. He stopped walking. There was another tug on the chain, this one much harder and then the way he felt changed. He felt different but he didn't like it. When he walked there was nothing holding him back. There were more voices and he felt himself being propelled through the door and then a burning in his eyes.

  "Leave the door. I think I might brick the bloody room up. Poor bugger, stuck down there like that for what? Seven years, all because he gave one of Sunar's lasses a good seeing to." He sniffed. "Look at him, he's a broken man. He needs some sleep and some kindness." Galrath walked over to the open door of the cell and put his ear to the opening. "Gods! How many rats must there be in there to make that much noise." He scowled and entered the room, the stench almost overpowering, but that noise. It wasn’t vermin in the walls, unless they were dog sized and there wasn’t enough food down here for that.

  For the two days since Prince Melvekior put down the uprising, Galrath had been functioning as Head Warden and was desperate to do something important to secure that role. A mere guardsman he had been for six years, carrying our boring task after boring task and when he saw an opportunity to do something good he’d taken it.

  On the day of the rebellion he had watched horrified as Marcus, the late Prince Sunar’s companion, ran riot through the palace, burning priceless works of art, smashing furniture and cursing the Gods loudly and venomously. Galrath knew he would have to be stopped, but didn’t have the courage at first, but when he saw the Living Mountain, he who threw Apset from the Throne of Gold, storm through the Grand Hall, he knew whose side he was on. He was there when Hestallr placed Marcus on one of the couches meant for guests waiting and he took the initiative to stand nearby expecting trouble. And trouble there was.

  Marcus had leaped up, as well as he could with a broken ankle, having feigned unconsciousness, dagger in hand and tried to stab the High Priest in the back. Galrath, watchful as he was, simply laid him low with a punch to the head and then dragged him bodily to a first level cell.

  This here was a fourth level cell, the forgotten level, the places where the most heinous criminals spent their lives. The ones who had committed such ghastly crimes that they weren’t given the quick option of execution but were left to waste away, forgotten and insane. Caravice Wintom was one such. He looked double his thirty years, his shriveled limbs and unwashed body were pitiful and his mind long gone. According to the records he had fornicated with one of the Prince’s concubines and they had both paid the price. He was even more glad Sunar was dead now, such a vindictive individual did not deserve to lead his country. Prince Melvekior on the other hand was noble. Young and handsome and showed the proper deference to Lord Hestallr and the Church. A real leader.

  “Hey come in here,” he shouted to Alegnon, the other guard. “Leave the old man there.” He had forgotten that in fact the “old man” wasn’t more than a few years old than he.

  “That is loud, sir. Gettin’ louder I reckons.” The younger man poked his sword at the back wall from where the noise came. The wall didn’t look strong and the point of the blade gouged a piece out. If there was something scratching at the wall from the other side it wouldn’t be long before it got through if it was that weak the whole way through.

  The scratching was getting louder and another noise started to make itself heard.

  “It sounds like dogs, sir.”

  “How would dogs get back there? How would anything get back there?” He turned to check on the prisoner. He still stood in exactly the same place Alegnon left him. “Drag him out of this level, get him to the spare room on level one. I’m going to seal this level.”

  “Aye sir,” he didn’t need to be told twice. The howling was getting louder and it was playing havoc with his nerves. He swiftly left the room, sheathed his sword, grabbed Wintom’s wrist and pulled him along with him. “Come on, grandfather, follow me.”

  Galrath wasn’t feeling too grand himself. Something about the howling made him nervous, nauseated even. “Fuck this,” he murmured to nobody in particular. He almost sprinted out of the room, nearly tripping in the depression made by the stone disk that the prisoner had been lugging around for years. Whatever’s making that noise is welcome to it, he thought. He slammed the door shut not bothering to lock it, just wanting to get away. He knew his fear was irrational, but something was pushing him to seek light and warmth. He bypassed the torch he had put in the holder just outside the door and turned to run down the corridor, the noise now fading but the memory still pushing him to leave at full speed. The light from the lone torch at the corridor’s end enough for him to make his way without colliding with a wall. He almost panicked when he saw the door closing but it was merely Alegnon making space for the shuffling prisoner to climb the stairs, the space twixt door and first step being enough only for one person.

  “Quick, man!” he shouted as he slipped through the door, locking it in turn. The old man was taking his time to ascend the staircase and he couldn’t reasonably see a way of hurrying him. Every heartbeat was an eternity for Galrath. There was no immediate risk but he knew that the danger was very real, instinctively he knew but didn’t want to think about it. He just kept his eyes on the prisoner, his emaciated frame shakily taking the steps at a snail’s pace.

  He tapped his foot impatiently, all the while listening yet hearing nothing apart from Alegnon’s soothing entreaties to the old man to hurry. Galrath was on the verge of losing his temper, wondering if a shout of “just fucking pick him up and be done with it” would have frightened the old man too much.

  Turning, he unlocked the door to look down the corridor, his curiosity stronger than his dread. The torch at the old man’s cell was still lit but he was sure he could see movement. That should be possible. Nothing was down here. He had cleared all the cells and Wintom’s was the last. Still, what if the scratching and howling…

  There were figures. By Mithras, there were figures, man sized figures in the corridor and they were heading for him. He heard a strangled yelp and slammed the door, onl
y then realizing that it was he who had made the sound. He turned the key with shaking hands, taking a few seconds to push the door more firmly so that the lock would turn.

  “Everything all right, sir?” came Alegnon’s voice from the top of the stairs.

  “Yes, yes, it’s fine. Get going.” He tried to keep his voice from quivering. He gave the door a kick. It was firm, nothing was getting through that.

  Only when he reached the top of the stairs and locked that door did he feel relatively safe again.

  “I think the old man’s pissed himself, sir. Can you smell that?” Alegnon said, almost cheerily as they headed through the dim corridor of the third level, also recently vacated.

  Sure enough, it was the smell of piss, but it wasn’t the old man Galrath realized with dismay.

  “Don’t you worry about that, just get him to a room and into a bath.”

  After examining the details of their cases, Melvekior pardoned every prisoner on levels three and four. The depth of Sunar’s cruelty was astonishing and Melvekior had been sickened by it. The torture detailed in the prison logs was barbarous and he had immediately put the previous master of the jails under arrest and appointed the fellow who had brained Marcus, preventing him from stabbing Hestallr, as the new Head Warden. He didn’t really know what to do first, there seemed so many things that Sunar had done terribly. The absence of Aeldryn was felt, but Povimus promised to stay and sort through things with him, with the ulterior motive of driving Church business first and foremost. Melvekior wasn’t naive enough to think that Povimus wasn’t there to tap into the massive wealth that tithing the Mareshian’s would bring, but even his dedication to the Church wouldn’t stop him from reigning the man in.

  The people of Maresh-Kar were his responsibility now and he intended to do as his father would have wanted.

  A particular prisoner’s story had touched his heart. A man who, for love, had been horribly mutilated and left in the dark for more than seven years. He had also charged Galrath, after releasing the man, with finding the grave of Deena and ensuring she had a suitable burial. He had his doubts that this would be possible, her body was probably thrown out to sea knowing Sunar, but at least the pretense could be made. Povimus was preparing a list of the pardons and would ensure this be broadcast throughout the Principality. Injustices such as Sunar had wrought would no longer be tolerated and while he didn’t want to come down too hard on the lawlessness that he knew had become second nature amongst the rich and powerful, he wanted them to know that there would be equity within the law. No spoiled noble was he and this message he wanted to disseminate as well.

  Melvekior had taken to using Sunar’s map room as his base of operations. There were piles and piles of paper for him to sort through. Povimus sat at his own desk not fifteen feet from his, the priest’s task, which he was most agreeable to, was to understand how Mareshian taxes worked and who paid how much. Melvekior’s job was everything else. First on his list though was to see someone who could potentially save him untold labor.

  Flaubert. Sunar’s butler and aide.

  Once it was clear that Sunar was dead and Marcus’s pathetic attempt at a rebellion was over Flaubert had lost all direction and sat in the Royal vault and curled up into a ball and slept. He was found there by some guards and dragged in front of Melvekior, himself being pulled in every direction so made the hasty decision to imprison him in the room he had recently vacated. Now it was time to talk to him.

  There was a knock at the door, Povimus paid it no heed and Melvekior looked around, savoring for a few more seconds the silence he had come to treasure over the last couple of days. He hadn’t made any changes to the room and he liked the way it was. Maps all over the walls and the somehow hardened map on the floor which seemed invulnerable to feet and chairs being dragged across it. His chair sat on a place far to the East named Vreidheid, Povimus had, probably unknown to him, claimed the spot on the map where the Three Kingdoms sat.

  “Yes, come in,” Melvekior shouted. He thought about shouting “enter” or “who is it?” but one seemed extremely pretentious, the other disingenuous as he was expecting a guard with Flaubert.

  Flaubert entered, the guard standing to attention outside the door. Every time Melvekior had seen him previously he had been immaculately attired and officious looking but he now looked tired and scared. His dark hair, usually slicked back, was wild, sticking out here and there and the gray showed through. Flaubert’s eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, they darted to Melvekior, over to Povimus and then around the room. He sighed and took a deep breath and then bowed deeply towards Melvekior. He wore still the clothes of his office, black leggings and a black and red doublet, but his shoes were missing and his feet filthy.

  “Your Highness, I am your loyal servant.” One of the few people who understood correct honorifics it seemed. Sunar didn’t have a problem being addressed as “Your Majesty” though that was correctly only for King Calra Alpre. The rivalry between the two probably explained why the King wasn’t more upset about the death of his three hundred year old brother. Immortality made one selfish apparently.

  “Are you, Flaubert? It seemed to me that you were the loyal servant of Sunar before me.” Melvekior kept his voice low, he didn’t want to spook the nervous fellow.

  “I am, Lord Melvekior. My loyalty lies to whomever holds the title of Prince of Maresh-Kar.” He nodded furiously.

  “Where does that loyalty end, though? Sunar was a beastly man, surely you knew of his various depredations? Was there no length to which you were not prepared to go for him?”

  “I knew, know, of more than you can imagine, sire. Prince Sunar was a persuasive man, in his way. I beg of you, do not harm her. You are a man of religion are you not? Linae has done no wrong, but she must be terrified, and I, I am not man enough to affect her release.”

  Melvekior sighed, Sunar often bought loyalty with threats of harm to loved ones. One could hardly blame a person for carrying out orders from their liege, even more so should their families be threatened.

  “Who is Linae, man, spit it out and for Mithras’s sake, of course I won’t harm her.”

  There were tears in his eyes now. “My sister, Lord. I haven’t spoken to her since Sunar fell, but she will probably be in the harem.” He gulped, wide-eyed. “Sunar said that even if he died, his successor would still need the company of women, unless of course he tired of her and then…” he broke down then into floods of tears.

  Flaubert cried rather too much for his liking. “She’s probably at home then, I sent Sunar’s concubines away.”

  The fop wailed and threw himself to Melvekior’s feet. “Oh thank you, Lord, thank you.” He kissed the cuff of his boots, and was wiping his tears into the leather, before Melvekior stopped him less gently than maybe he should have.

  “Yes, all right. You can go once you swear fealty to me and convert.” He hadn’t intended to make the man convert, but he’d already sworn fealty.

  “Of course, I will attend Church daily.” He looked at Povimus who ignored him. “The Lord Hestallr liberated us from Marcus, who would undoubtedly have ravished Linae and wasted more of Prince Sunar, I mean Prince Melvekior’s money. Your money, Lord.” He was almost tripping over his words in his haste to prove his worth and loyalty.

  “Wonderful. Now, what do you know of the economics of this city and the region itself?” Melvekior was hopeful.

  “Everything.”

  “What? Everything? Explain.”

  Yes, Lord everything. There are two sets of financial journals. One Sunar shows to the other stakeholders in the mining consortium, the other, a true record of the monetary wealth of Maresh-Kar.”

  “Are you telling me that there is more wealth here than supposed?”

  “Oh yes, much more. Sunar, and his precedents have been most diligent in amassing a vast fortune. The exact amount is…”

  “Something we don’t need to know at this precise moment,” interrupted Melvekior. Just because Povimus didn’
t look like he was listening, didn’t mean he wasn’t. He’d learned very quickly indeed how shrewd, not to mention greedy, this man was. “I’ll see both sets of books tomorrow.” Povimus would be overseeing the new Church that was being paid for by Melvekior, or rather, the people of Maresh-Kar.

  “Very well, my liege. Will there be anything else?” He was slipping back into his role. Melvekior doubted he knew how to be disloyal.

  “No. Come back in the morning. Spend the night with your sister.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  They Come

  “The best time for a crisis is just after the last one.” - Melvekior

  Melvekior was awakened early the next morning by Flaubert. There was no knock, at least one that he heard, merely a sudden presence by his bed. Judging by the the light, he hadn’t had more than a few hours sleep. The curtains were drawn, left that way by him so he wouldn’t sleep too long. For the third time now he had underestimated how comfortably one could sleep in such a bed as he now owned.

  Sunar’s, his, bedroom was enormous. You could house entire families in a space this size. Not that he intended to move any in, but he was certainly impressed and quite pleased with himself.

  He wasn’t pleased though at having what seemed only a few minutes sleep, though it was in the region of a few hours. Still, not enough sleep. “What is it, Flaubert. Didn’t I tell you to spend the night with your sister?”

  “That I did, Your Highness. And a pleasing reunion it was. Linae, very attractive she is, sire, even commented that, should you so require, she would be happy to resume her previous duties. On a voluntary basis, of course.” The fussy manservant was pulling his blankets back so that Melvekior could rise easier. Melvekior didn’t want to rise easier and yanked the covers back.

  “That’s not necessary, but thank the lady for me.” He tried to burrow down into the incredibly soft and voluminous pillows he had enjoyed for too short a time.